The lead counsel for the video game industry in the upcoming Supreme Court fight against California’s proposed violent video game restrictions outlined the problems with the state’s legal arguments in a recent public appearance.

Speaking at an intellectual property forum at Chicago-Kent University last week, Jenner and Block LLP Partner Paul M. Smith said that no matter how a state defines "extreme" violence in such laws, they will run into constitutional problems with vagueness.

"I've litigated nine cases in a row where states have tried to define the category nine different ways – and they always lose when they make this case because violence is considered a perfectly appropriate and normal part of what we give our kids to see starting from a very young age," he said.

The president of the International Corporation for Assigned Named and Numbers (ICANN), the organization responsible for giving those pesky internet IP numbers actual names that you can type into your browser, says that his organization will not play international internet copyright cops (according to a Washington Post report).

An article from conservative news site Breitbart plays up comments made by both feminist media critic and Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian and Feminist Frequency writer Jonathan McIntosh about CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and the response from Forbes writer Erik Kain. Over the weekend Sarkeesian offered her two cents on the way The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt portrays and treats women in a couple of tweets.

404Sight, an Unreal Engine 4 game about net neutrality, is now available on Steam. The game was developed by Retro Yeti Games, who received a $13,000 grant from Epic Games as part of its Unreal Dev Grant program in late March.

The development team is made up of University of Utah students who decided to create an endless runner game that makes a statement about net neutrality.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Organization for Transformative Works have jointly filed an amicus brief in Davis v. Electronic Arts currently before the Ninth Circuit court. In its brief the EFF says that "bad facts are making bad law," referring to several court rulings related to celebrities using lawsuits about "rights to publicity" against creative works to trump free speech.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging U.S. citizens to contact the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to let them know that the long-held hands-off policy related to free and low-cost political speech online should remain unmolested by new regulations.

Maybe the Christmas Spirit moved them, or maybe they thought it should be up to the community - but whatever the reason - Valve has decided to reinstate Creative Destruction's controversial game Hatred on Steam Greenlight.

If you haven't been paying attention to the situation, Valve removed the game (which its developers describe as a mass shooting action game where you gun down people for no particular reason) from Steam Greenlight a few hours after the project went live on the service, with Valve's Doug Lombardi saying the game wasn't a good fit for Steam.

BasedGamer, a gaming reviews and "other features" aggregation site being put together by Jennie Bharaj is seeking $50,000 to become a reality. Its Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign has raised $7,892 (or roughly 16 percent), of its goal as of this writing, with 45 more days to go.

In case you missed it, video streaming service Netflix will be taking part in Fight for the Future's "Internet Slowdown" initiative to protest the FCC's proposed changes to the Open Internet Order (also known as net neutrality).

Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock Entertainment are free to use the word "rebellion" in the name of its latest real-time strategy game (Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion) because it is protected by the First Amendment, a U.S. judge ruled last month. The news of the ruling was revealed by Ironclad co-owner Blair Fraser in a forum post celebrating the victory - as reported on by Polygon.

The composer behind the music for The Banner Saga, Monaco, and Journey is in a very public dispute with the American Federation of Musicians and could be fined as much as $50,000 for his work on The Banner Saga.

Josh Olin, the community and eSports manager at Evolve developer Turtle Rock Studios, has been fired over tweets he made yesterday in support of embattled LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Olin, who is a former community manager at Treyarch Studios and Riot Games, said on Twitter on Wednesday:

"Here's an unpopular opinion: Donald Sterling has the right as an American to be an old bigot in the security of his own home. He's a victim."

Earlier this year the highest appeals court in the land ruled in favor of Verizon and against the FCC (Verizon v. FCC), ultimately concluding that the agency did not have the jurisdiction to enforce its Open Internet Order under the Telecommunications Act.

The Voice of Russia reports that Russia may adopt stricter age restrictions for videogames and websites soon. One of the biggest online companies in the region, Mail.Ru, has already begun labeling its games voluntarily. The company has already labeled its games with age restrictions on three of its gaming web portals: Games Mail.Ru and Mini-games Mail.Ru as well as the gaming center for its users. The restrictions are based on ratings standards developed by Russian regulators and European counterpart PEGI.

When the Daily Caller and the San Francisco Gate report a positive in the same story, it doesn't mean that the apocalypse is in full swing; it generally means that something particularly interesting and possibly good has occurred.

The head of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has lashed out at one of the key journalists publishing stories about the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. While not mentioning him by name, Rogers basically calls The Guardian's Glen Greenwald a thief, implying that he is committing some sort of crime and is selling the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. You may recall that Greenwald was one of the first journalists to break the story about Edward Snowden and his cache of NSA-related documents and materials..

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made headlines again this week when he intimated that certain unnamed journalists were accomplices in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Google sent out a call to action today urging internet users to sign a petition on Whitehouse.gov demanding that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) be reformed to include more protections for online activity and to reflect the change in the way people use the Internet. As is the case with petitions on the site, the White House is only obligated to respond once the petition has reached 100,000 signatures. As of this writing the petition has 43,928 of the signatures it needs by Dec. 12.

Berin Szoka, President of Internet rights organization TechFreedom has penned an interesting editorial over at the Huffington Post detailing his group's opposition to Massachusetts state lawmakers pushing for research on the connection between real-world violence and playing violent video games.

Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) hacker Jeremy Hammond will be sentenced on Nov. 15. The admitted Anonymous member pled guilty earlier this year to infiltrating the computers of the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) and releasing the information on the Internet.

On this week's show, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the latest GamePolitics poll, the controversy over a crunch time tweet from Crytek, the cost of Six Strikes, a special needs student being suspended from school for drawing a bomb, and an Illinois State Attorney calling for an "economic boycott" of GTA V. Download Episode 74 now: SuperPAC Episode 74 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 33.1 MB.

A special needs student who brought a picture of a bomb to school that he drew has been suspended. The student, 13-year-old Rhett Parham, enjoys drawing and watching videos of his favorite game Bomberman 64 on YouTube.

He drew a picture of an a old fashioned bomb and took it to his school - Hillcrest Middle School in Simpsonville, SC. At one point on Monday during one of his classes, he told his classmates that he "had a bomb" and showed them his drawing. This apparently led to the school suspending him.

The plaintiff in the landmark gun rights Supreme Court decision that bears his name (Heller v. District of Columbia) warned that the effort to regulate violent video games in the U.S. Congress is "a backdoor attack on gun rights." The Supreme Court case, Heller v. District of Columbia, overturned D.C.'s handgun ban. In a report on conservative publication Human Events, Heller said that lawmakers are targeting video games as a way to get at the issue from behind.

On this week's show, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight are joined by Ben Hayward, who wrote an interesting article last week about how video game players are often gun owners too, and how the government often tries to pit one group against the other. Andrew also reveals the results of last week's poll concerning the Mighty No. 9 and the possibility that the developer behind the game might get sued by Capcom.

There's a common perception that the Supreme Court justices rely too heavily on the opinions of their younger staffers when it comes to technology. But a story on Talking Points Memo reveals that at least some of the justices are trying a bit harder to learn things on their own - particularly when it comes to technology that is completely foreign to them.

A group of Satanists have petitioned Riot Games to uncensor the name of their favorite deity in the popular MOBA game League of Legends. They may have a valid point in calling it censorship of their religious views. In their petition they point out that other religious gods and deities are not censored such as Jesus, Allah, Zeus, Venus and God.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a review of the 677 New Loudon Corp. v. State of New York Tax Tribunal, following a decision from the New York Supreme Court that the state government may tax exotic dancing but not other forms of dancing. Free speech advocacy group Media Coalition thinks that if the Supreme Court were to review this decision, it would likely overturn it because it violates the First Amendment. The group recently filed an amicus brief with the court urging it to review the case.

On this week's show (Episode 62) hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the very public meltdown and rage-quit of Fez developer Phil Fish, Nintendo's decision to remove content from the next Super Smash Bros. game because of the Internet, Australia's hypocrisy when it comes to game ratings and drugs; and the results of last week's poll on Game Politics. Download Episode 62 now: SuperPAC Episode 62 (1 hour, 1 minute) 56.5 MB.

Shout box

Infophile: @Matt: Apparently Dan Aykroyd actually is involved. We don't know how yet, though, but he's apparently going to be in the movie in some way.08/02/2015 - 4:17am

Mattsworkname: I still hold that not having the origonal cast invovled in any way hurts this movie, and unless the 4 actresses in the lead roles can some how measure up to the comic timing of the origonal cast, i just don't see it being a success08/02/2015 - 12:46am

Mattsworkname: Mecha: regardless of what you think of it, GB 2 was a finanical success and for it time did well with audiances ,even if it wasnt as popular as the first08/02/2015 - 12:45am

MechaTama31: I think they're better off trying to do something different, than trying to be exactly the same and having every little difference held up as a shortcoming. Uncanny valley.08/01/2015 - 11:57pm

MechaTama31: Having the original cast didn't do much for... that pink-slimed atrocity which we must never speak of.08/01/2015 - 11:56pm

Mattsworkname: Andrew: If the new ghostbusters bombs, I cant help but feel it'll be cause it removed the origonal cast and changed the formula to much08/01/2015 - 8:31pm

Andrew Eisen: Not the best look but that appears to be a PKE meter hanging from McCarthy's belt.08/01/2015 - 7:34pm

Mattsworkname: You know what game is a lot of fun? rocket league. It' s a soccer game thats actually fun to play cause your A Freaking CAR!08/01/2015 - 7:02pm

Mattsworkname: Nomad colossus did a little video about it, showing the world and what can be explored in it's current form. It's worth a look, and he uses text for commentary as not to break the immerison08/01/2015 - 5:49pm

Mattsworkname: I feel some more mobility would have made it more interesting and I feel that a larger more diverse landscape with better graphiscs would help, but as a concept, it interests me08/01/2015 - 5:48pm

Andrew Eisen: Huh. I guess I'll have to check out a Let's Play to get a sense of the game.08/01/2015 - 5:47pm

Mattsworkname: It did, I found the idea of exploring a world at it's end, exploring the abandoned city of a disappeared alien race and the planets various knooks and crannies intriqued me.08/01/2015 - 5:46pm

Andrew Eisen: Did it appeal to you? If so, what did you find appealing?08/01/2015 - 5:43pm

Mattsworkname: Its an interesting concept, but it's not gonna appeal to everyone thats for sure,08/01/2015 - 5:40pm

Andrew Eisen: That sounds horrifically boring. Doesn't sound like an interesting use of its time dilation premise either. 08/01/2015 - 5:36pm

Mattsworkname: an observer , seeing this sorta frozen world and being able to explore without any restriction other then time. no enimes, no threats, just the chance to explore08/01/2015 - 5:34pm